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Cross-realm zones coming soon
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria news64-bit World of Warcraft game client now available for testing
by Chase Hasbrouck 
Jan 9th 2012 at 2:00PM
Now, before you get too excited, realize that this isn't a panacea. If you're running a 32-bit OS, you won't be able to use this at all, and a 64-bit system with limited memory (say, 4GB of RAM or less) may actually see decreased performance due to the increased memory usage of 64-bit programs. Systems with more memory, however, will be able to cache more program data in RAM. This should help speed up things that require large reads from the hard drive, such as changing zones, and may increase stability for those who run lots of addons.
A 64-bit client is now available for use with the 4.3.2 PTR. You can download it at the link below, unzip it into your PTR directory, and then run the executable to test it.
• The 64-bit client is being distributed separately from the PTR as it is not yet supported for use with World of Warcraft.
• This can only be used with the 4.3.2 PTR, it is not to be used with the live version of the game.
• A Mac version is not available yet, though we are working on one and plan for it to be available in the near future.
• The game's built in voice chat does not currently work in the 64-bit client.
• The 64-bit client is being distributed separately from the PTR as it is not yet supported for use with World of Warcraft.
• This can only be used with the 4.3.2 PTR, it is not to be used with the live version of the game.
• A Mac version is not available yet, though we are working on one and plan for it to be available in the near future.
• The game's built in voice chat does not currently work in the 64-bit client.
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Aceman67 Jan 9th 2012 3:01PM
If you have a 64-Bit Operating system, using the 64-bit version of WoW will allow the game to use more then the default 2gb of ram it already uses. Unless you're a multi-tasker and like to do things while WoW is running, using the 64-bit version would be a Boon.
And if your computer uses DDR3 ram, its pretty cheap at the moment, you can get 8 gig bundles (2 4gb sticks or 4 2gb sticks) starting from 50 bucks...
Edymnion Jan 9th 2012 3:04PM
Yeah.
The 64-bit instructions take longer for your processor to read and decode than the 32-bit ones, so it would actually slow you down to try and run a 64 bit version if you didn't have the extra RAM to offset it.
Theyas Jan 9th 2012 3:26PM
Conflicting replies are conflicting :(
Teaspoon Jan 9th 2012 6:24PM
It's probably OK to go to 64-bit with 4GB RAM. It's a small download and you can choose which one to load from the launcher, so why not try it when it comes out and see what works better?
I haven't done the research regarding Edymnion's assertion that CPUs take longer to perform 64-bit instructions, but I wouldn't think there's a significant difference between processing time for 64-bit vs 32-bit arithmetic when you have a 64-bit CPU. There's certainly a difference when doing 64-bit arithmetic on a 32-bit CPU, because adding two 64-bit numbers on a 32-bit CPU requires two 32-bit additions plus a third addition to carry the one. This probably isn't relevant to WoW anyway, because the 64-bit WoW client will likely still only be performing 32-bit arithmetic to maintain compatibility with the 32-bit clients.
The big difference between the 32-bit and 64-bit WoW clients will be the RAM usage. 32-bit addressing allow you to have 4GB worth of addresses but only half of that is used to access RAM and the other half of the address space is for direct access to hardware, so a 32-bit application can't occupy more than 2GB of RAM because it wouldn't be able to remember where it was putting things after that. 64-bit addressing squares the size of the address space to 16 Exabytes (Exa- is the prefix for 10^18), and even if the tradition of only using half the address space for RAM persists, 8EB is somewhat bigger than we're likely to reach in terms of home computer RAM in the next few years.
The 64-bit client will be able to expand to use all available RAM in your computer and will likely give some performance improvements due to not having to unload and reload big chunks of the game to stay under 2GB, but this comes at the cost of needing to use twice as much memory to remember the location of each item it stores, so it will occupy more RAM to have the same data in memory. To borrow somebody else's library analogy from earlier in the comments, the new index cards that let you access all the extra shelf space are twice the size of the old cards and thus your index card cabinet needs to be twice as big.
All that said, the extra memory required by the 64-bit client isn't going to take THAT big a bite out of the extra 2GB that's available to a 64-bit app on your 4GB system, so you'll still be less likely to run into out of memory errors.
logicalfundy Jan 9th 2012 8:29PM
Give it a try. It wouldn't hurt.
I disagree with the assertion that the larger client size (which should be minimal) will make a big difference. The larger amount of memory you can access should more than make up for it.
"The 64-bit instructions take longer for your processor to read and decode than the 32-bit ones"
This is false. All modern CPUs have native support for 64 bits and do not need any special decoding or extra steps for 64 bit instructions. The registers support 64 bits natively. They don't need to use SIMD unless it's 128 or 256 bits (and if you don't know what SIMD is, you probably shouldn't be making these assertions). Unless you're running a CPU older than the Pentium 4, this is simply not the case.
Monion Jan 9th 2012 9:16PM
Not only does it not take longer to decode a 64 bit instruction than a 32 bit instruction, it takes the same amount of time to read them from memory. 64 bit processors load up 64 bit registers by reading out 64 bit values at a time. A 32 bit instruction is just going to go through the WOW64 layer on Windows (which allows 32 bit instructions to be executed on a 64 bit processor), which means that it actually takes *longer* to execute a 32 bit program than the same 64 bit program on a 64 bit version of Windows (I can only assume Linux and MacOS do something simliar from an translation layer standpoint).
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64
VioletArrows Jan 9th 2012 3:15PM
Well this comes just in time to see just what this new compy can do. :D
Tirrimas Jan 9th 2012 3:37PM
I'm so excited for you - when I saw this headline, your shiny new PC was my first thought. XD
VioletArrows Jan 9th 2012 4:51PM
Thanks! I can finally turn on weeds and flowers! XD
ZephyrSP Jan 9th 2012 3:59PM
Nice, can't wait till this is released for the main servers.
I'm already using almost 19% of my SSD space on WoW, this should give load times another boost.
Abbadon Jan 9th 2012 4:14PM
My noob question...
Will our current addons work with the 64bit client, or will they all have to be re-written by the developers?!
Drakkenfyre Jan 9th 2012 4:44PM
Won't bother them.
Addons run on LUA. This change doesn't affect the LUA scripting. Now, they may make changes that will require newer versions anyway, like any major patch versions, so it might not matter anyway, and you will need an update reguardless.
Abbadon Jan 9th 2012 4:48PM
You answered my question, but to elaborate... I was wondering whether this would require developers to maintain 2 copies of each addon.
logicalfundy Jan 9th 2012 8:39PM
There is no concept of 32 bits or 64 bits in Lua - it hides those details from the developers.
"You answered my question, but to elaborate... I was wondering whether this would require developers to maintain 2 copies of each addon."
No. They will not need to do so.
Matthew Jan 9th 2012 5:22PM
does 64bit mean better graphics?
Steve Jan 9th 2012 5:42PM
In a word...no. However, increased performance due to higher memory usage could result in better framerates, so you may be able to increase your graphics options a bit. So in another word...no, but maybe sorta.
Steffan Jan 9th 2012 6:06PM
I don't know crap about computers, so answer me this:
What's the difference between 32- and 64-bit, and how will this affect me?
logicalfundy Jan 9th 2012 8:41PM
If you have 4 GB or more of memory, WoW will be able to use all of it.
Before, WoW could not use all of it.
logicalfundy Jan 9th 2012 8:10PM
"The game's built in voice chat does not currently work in the 64-bit client."
Does anybody use it? I've never seen a PUG use it, and guilds tend to use Vent/Mumble. It seriously needs a lot of work if Blizzard really intends for us to use it.
"and a 64-bit system with limited memory (say, 4GB of RAM or less) may actually see decreased performance due to the increased memory usage of 64-bit programs."
I disagree. The increased memory usage will be plenty offset by being able to use all 4 GB rather than about 2 GB or so. A 4 GB system should be sped up, rather than slowed down. The actual increase of memory usage should be very minimal.
If you're *not* gonna be able to use a larger pool of memory because of the 64 bit compatibility, don't bother. The whole purpose of it is to be able to use more of your memory.
"Systems with more memory, however, will be able to cache more program data in RAM. This should help speed up things that require large reads from the hard drive, such as changing zones, and may increase stability for those who run lots of addons."
Changing zones should be faster, but to be honest addons don't really take up that much memory. Even with a lot of them installed, I doubt they are taking up a lot of memory.
One thing that will very likely benefit is when there's lots of players in one place. I remember that Dalaran used to crash my system with out of memory errors even though my system was far more than 4 GB (6 GB, later upgraded to 8 GB). Thankfully, Cataclysm resolved that by encouraging players to spread out a bit in the major cities, but I imagine it's still possible. With a 64 bit client, Dalaran would have run fine.